There’s an old saying -

Greek or Roman I can’t remember -

It says that when you meet your beloved,

Flowers start to blossom on your soul,

That those who love move through life as walking gardens.

 

Sometimes feathers grow instead,

And we walk around pigeon-chested,

But feathers don’t need to be watered;

They don’t brown or crinkle like lace in the fire-pit -

Weeds don’t grow among feathers.

 

So the pigeon-chested lovers are the lucky ones,

But still I admire the way these roses look on me,

Even though I know they’ll shed

At the first hint of autumn breeze

Or sight of snow.

 

Maybe I can keep them under a heat lamp

Somewhere indoors

And simply watch the other lovers and loners walk around outside

Walking free.

Maybe I’ll just wait for spring.

 

But by spring I’ll just be one of those

Fox skulls in the woods

That moss and flowers grow on when they please

 

So because I love you, I’ll let them fall instead.

 

-

 

I had a dream about you last night.

 

I was kissing you like your mouth was the antidote to some deadly poison

My hands were in your hair

I was touching your skin

Your skin that at a glance seems like velvet

And at a touch

Like warm river stone

And it was like I was breathing in your body

Like your body was smoke from a bowl

Getting me high.

I held your body in my body

In my lungs

Breathing you in and then breathing you out again.

 

And because I love you

I won’t tell you about it

Because we already tried the dating thing

And I don’t want to screw up the promise we made about

“Let’s still be friends”

 

But when I breathed you in,

Some piece of you stayed in my lungs,

And now I can’t seem to pull it out.

 

-

 

There was a man I knew

Who taught me how to play the saxophone

And whom the universe wanted to kill

 

He showed the scar where his finger

Had been sliced off in a bike accident

And sewn back on again

X-rays showed that he had scratches on his lungs

From cigarettes and childhood pneumonia

And he had been born with a vestigial second aorta

Before it was removed,

It had snaked around his lungs,

Small intestine,

And liver,

Before withering off like the end of a winter branch,

Like the crinkled petal of a rose

Like a seed swallowed and then grown again

 

I still spit out black watermelon seeds,

Afraid my stomach will distend with the growing fruit,

That I’ll become the holy virgin mother

To a twisting vine

 

-

 

There’s still a vine inside me,

But because I love you,

I’ll prune it back like my mother tears out weeds,

Fiercely and without mercy

I will keep the dandelions from growing on my heart

 

And because I love you

I won’t dream

And I won’t think about those six months

When we were more than friends

When we were uneasy and disconnected

When I wondered just why I had decided to ruin everything

 

I don’t know why I still think about this,

Why I still dream about you this way

 

There are roots left in me that I can’t pull out

But because I love you,

I’ll pretend they

Just

Aren’t

There.